Saturday, April 24, 2010

There is something ghostly about finding old cars in the woods. When I come across cars like this I can't help but try to tap back in time to get a sense what happened here. The imagination runs wild.

If it was a crash or stolen it probably would have been removed. It was abandoned. Pushed down the embankment. But why?

The old work truck has been here for decades. It belonged to a farmer before the government knocked on his door and made him an offer. The railroad was coming through. The farmer ended up in Pittsfield where he ran a bookstore for many years. Never married and childless, he died alone in 1974. Only one sister, Eunice from Caselton-On-Hudson, made it to the service.

This Ford Fairlane is at rest but not comfortably. After careening over the granite bridge wall it never really settled. But is firm in the ground.

The hood is gone. The driver side door is pulled open off the hinges like someone ripped at it violently. Maybe to pull someone out.

Someone smoked cigarettes here every morning on the way to work. WHYN 560 played Judy Collins, Both Sides Now. Unfastoned kids jumped around in the backseat. "I'm going to stop this car if you don't behave!" The car mostly ended up stopping for ice cream.

Bullet holes. It's now target practice. Here's an old Web site featuring some old cars in the woods in Farmington, Connecticut.

Off The Shelf: The Finest Hours by Michael J. Tougias and Casey Sherman

From Booklist: In a 1952 nor’easter, the distress of two ships off Cape Cod initiated a dramatic Coast Guard operation recounted here by coauthors Tougias and Sherman. Both vessels were World War II surplus, cheaply built, unwisely kept in service, and broken in two by the storm. All four halves floated, for the moment, and the authors’ narrative accordingly tracks four separate search-and-rescue efforts that form the complete story. The most prominent, in the press at the time and in official honors conferred afterward, concerned one motorized lifeboat, a puny 36 feet long and manned by four men, dispatched to do battle with the maelstrom’s towering waves. This is the seascape of The Perfect Storm, and the authors do justice to the peril in a tight account of the action. Plotting the course of CG36500, the utilitarian name of the lifeboat captained by Bernie Webber (interviewed for this book), Tougias and Sherman reach their peak of tension in the sink-or-swim moments when mariners abandoned ship and chanced their lives on their rescuers’ skill and bravery. An excellent entry in the disaster-at-sea genre. --Gilbert Taylor

A collision of memories, time and space

Our focus is on Western Massachusetts. Our postings are mostly of common images that folks might come across in their everyday journeys. Wall graffiti, lampposts, ticket booths, street scenes, wildlife, forests and discarded objects are regular themes.
We started blogging with a focus on the history of our families and how the places they have lived evolved over time. We are most interested in how the past and present collide and launching the reader into a place where memories of prior experiences and places mingle with their everyday lives.
-- Bob Genest